MY LAWYER

SIOA

Fallaci!

Because

"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body."Ayn Rand

Friends expressed shock on Friday that the founder of a
Muslim TV channel — which he launched in order to counter violent
images of Muslims — has been arrested in his wife’s brutal slaying.

Detectives have charged Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree
murder after his wife was found beheaded Thursday at the offices of the
cable channel, Bridges TV, in the Village of Orchard Park.

The victim was identified as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37.

Police said they continued to search for the murder weapon on Friday and refused to discuss further details of the killing.

“I am totally stunned,” said Samira Khatib, a friend of the couple,
who lives in Hamburg. “They were really more than married — they
encouraged each other in everything.”

It was Aasiya Hassan who encouraged her businessman husband to
launch the cable channel, she said. “She was such a lovely person.”

Muzzammil Hassan launched the channel in 2004 in hopes of
dispelling stereotypes of Muslims as terrorists, and balancing
widespread images of Muslim extremism with moderate viewpoints.

Aasiya Hassan had filed for divorce and obtained an order of
protection on Feb. 6, barring her husband from their home in Orchard
Park, police said.

“There had been problems before — there had been prior incidents of
physical abuse,” said Corey Hogan, whose law firm, Hogan Willig,
represented Aasiya Hassan in the divorce proceeding....

The television channel, which Hassan had founded after leaving a job
at M&T Bank, had been under financial strain, said Khalid J. Qazi,
president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York....

In late 2006 a report in Arab News quoted Hassan saying he was trying to raise $5 million from investors in Saudi Arabia....

Ah. Very moderate.

And now for the obligatory mainstream media exoneration of Islam:

It would be a mistake to link an act of domestic violence to the couple’s religion, he added.

“There is no place for domestic violence in our religion — none,” Qazi said. “Islam would 100 percent condemn it.”

The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences has determined that over
ninety percent of Pakistani wives have been struck, beaten, or abused
sexually — for offenses on the order of cooking an unsatisfactory meal.
Others were punished for failing to give birth to a male child.
Dominating their women by violence is a prerogative Muslim men cling to
tenaciously. In Spring 2005, when the East African nation of Chad tried
to institute a new family law that would outlaw wife beating, Muslim
clerics led resistance to the measure as un-Islamic.

Why do things like this happen?

Because Islamic clerics worldwide have spoken approvingly of wife-beating.

In 2004, an imam in Spain, Mohammed Kamal Mustafa, was found guilty
of “inciting violence on the basis of gender” for his book Women in
Islam, which discussed the methods and limits of administering
“physical punishment” of women.

Muslim men bring this religiously sanctioned violence with them when
they immigrate to the West, even to the United States. The prominent
American Muslim leader Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, former president of the
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), has said that “in some cases a
husband may use some light disciplinary action in order to correct the
moral infraction of his wife…The Koran is very clear on this issue.”

In 1984, Sheikh Yousef Qaradhawi, who is one of the most respected
and influential Islamic clerics in the world, wrote: “If the husband
senses that feelings of disobedience and rebelliousness are rising
against him in his wife, he should try his best to rectify her attitude
by kind words, gentle persuasion, and reasoning with her. If this is
not helpful, he should sleep apart from her, trying to awaken her
agreeable feminine nature so that serenity may be restored, and she may
respond to him in a harmonious fashion. If this approach fails, it is
permissible for him to beat her lightly with his hands, avoiding her
face and other sensitive parts.”

Why do they say such things?

Because the permission to beat one’s wife is rooted in the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, and Islamic tradition.

The Qur'an says: “Men shall take full care of women with the
bounties which God has bestowed more abundantly on the former than on
the latter, and with what they may spend out of their possessions. And
the righteous women are the truly devout ones, who guard the intimacy
which God has [ordained to be] guarded. And as for those women whose
ill-will you have reason to fear, admonish them [first]; then leave
them alone in bed; then beat them…” (4:34)

The Islamic prophet Muhammad was once told that “women have become
emboldened towards their husbands,” whereupon he “gave permission to
beat them” (Sunan Abu Dawud, book 11, no. 2141). He was unhappy with the women who complained, not with their husbands who beat them.

Muhammad even struck his favorite wife, Aisha. One night, thinking
she was asleep, he went out. Aisha surreptitiously followed him. When
he found out what she had done, he hit her: “He struck me on the chest
which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His
Apostle would deal unjustly with you?” (Sahih Muslim, book 4, no. 2127).

Nothing in there about beheading, no. But the man was talking about domestic violence.

Why does this matter? Because as long as no one has the courage to
call Muslim leaders like Qazi to account for statements like this, and
ask them about the clear justifications for domestic violence that do appear in Islamic tradition, what can possibly be done to combat the prevalence of domestic violence in Islamic communities? Ignoring the Islamic justifications for domestic violence harms Muslim women.